


Nor All Thy Tears

by Tarlan



Series: Time Line [2]
Category: Primeval
Genre: Character Study, First Time, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-06-16
Updated: 2007-06-16
Packaged: 2017-10-12 23:02:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/130079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After being pulled into the anomaly, Nick has a revelation about himself and Stephen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nor All Thy Tears

_"The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ,  
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit  
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,  
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it."_

 **Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam**

***

When the anomaly expanded suddenly, engulfing Nick, Stephen knew he had only one option and he leaped forward, feeling the tingle as he passed through, body hitting the ground hard and knocking the air from his lungs but he had made it. Behind him, the anomaly winked out leaving no disturbance in the arid air.

Carefully, he rolled onto his back and stared up into an azure blue sky, blinking when a shape blotted out the view and sighing in relief when that shape coalesced into his lover's familiar features. He took the offered hand and allowed Nick to help him sit up while he regained his breath. Nick stared at him in confusion.

"What happened?"

"I'm not sure. It expanded and dragged you in."

"And you followed me?"

It was not so much a question for clarification but more to outline his stupidity because now they were both trapped in the Permian with no obvious means of returning to their own time. Stephen didn't see that as a problem, though, because he was exactly where he wanted to be, at Nick's side, but he could hardly say that to this man. Either this Nick was an exceptional actor or he truly was a stranger in Nick's body because he showed no sign of recalling their less than platonic relationship.

Stephen winced at the sharp stab of pain in his chest that had nothing to do with physical injury.

"Are you okay?"

Nick crouched down beside him, looking intently into his eyes with all traces of his former anger gone. Stephen did not believe for one minute that Nick had forgotten about his affair with Helen but, for now, that anger had been superseded by concern for his wellbeing.

"Just need to catch my breath."

Nick nodded, laying a hand on Stephen's shoulder and squeezing gently before using him as leverage to stand up. The warmth of that hand bled through Stephen's thin clothing, lingering long after Nick pulled away and it only made him miss his lover more.

Taking advantage of the situation, Stephen glanced around the barren landscape, seeing nothing for miles in most directions and the line of a ridge behind him. Nick was staring off in that direction so he guessed that was where they would be heading because they could not stay here. The sun had already passed its zenith and they would need cover and protection before nightfall if they were to survive the night.

Nick gave him a few more minutes and then held out his hand again to help Stephen to his feet.

"The camp was this way and I've no reason to believe we've slipped any years backwards or forwards so we should find water there at least."

Stephen nodded and followed a step behind as they began to walk towards the ridge, unable to resist taking covert glances at his lover as the slight breeze picked up the strands of Nick's hair.

Was it only last night that he had run his fingers through that hair as he dragged Nick into a dirty, passionate kiss?

For a few short hours he had driven away all thoughts of Helen and the anomalies from Nick's mind, reveling in the strong body rocking into him. They had exchanged heated kisses and murmured words of endearment as hands sought to learn every curve and plane of each other's body. He had cried out with his own release as Nick came deep inside him, collapsing in a sated heap within Nick's arms. Had he lost all of that now?

He took a shuddering breath. He should have told Nick about his brief affair with Helen. He should have explained that he was young at the time and oh so foolish, flattered by the attentions from an older woman, from someone he had respected. That respect was all but gone now, lost in her selfish actions and her malicious tongue. Her recklessness had led a dangerous predator of the future into the distant past where it had few enemies. Even though Stephen would prefer not to see this Claudia returned, knowing she held a greater place in this Nick's heart than he, Stephen would do what was right. He would help Nick to set the future – his present – back the way he believed it ought to be.

They topped another rise in the barren landscape and drew to a halt, staring down into the encampment and the devastation below. Equipment was scattered and bodies lay like broken rag dolls, strewn among the debris. Stephen swallowed hard when he spotted Captain Ryan's body. He had liked Tom Ryan and seeing him lying here bloodied and torn seemed wrong some how.

"I thought I'd buried him," Nick mumbled as he knelt down beside the body.

Stephen did not believe Nick would have forgotten something like that and could only assume the temporal anomaly was conflicting with Nick's memories. Perhaps he had buried him in a different timeline. Something different caught Stephen's eye and he moved slowly towards the half-eaten remains of what had been the mother predator. Part of him wondered 'when' Helen found it, and how far into the future and into the past she had traveled during those missing years. Had humans still walked the earth in that distant future or had they gone the way of the dinosaur and been replaced by this new predator?

"Let's get some of these supplies and move on quickly. These bodies will attract more predators."

Stephen turned back to the camp at Nick's words and gathered up a few items that would come in useful before helping Nick cover Ryan's body with stones. It would not keep a determined scavenger away but it seemed the right thing to do. The work was hard and sweaty with the sun beating down on them and Stephen was relieved when the final stone was in place. He stretched the soreness out of his muscles and glanced up at the sky. The sun would be setting in a few hours and he knew they ought to put some distance between them and the blood-bath of a camp before the nocturnal predators arrived.

Hefting a backpack onto his shoulders, filled with whatever he could scavenge from the camp, Stephen did not look back as they left the grisly remains far behind them. They walked for several miles before Nick spotted a shadow in the face of the rocky incline that could be the entrance to a cave.

Stephen dropped his backpack at the opening and flicked on the flashlight, illuminating the interior. It opened up a little inside but was not particularly deep, going back maybe ten feet but, more importantly, it was both empty and had only a small opening that could be more easily defended.

"Okay. I think we have about half an hour before the sun sets so we'd best gather as much firewood as we can and set it up just outside the entrance. That should deter any predators."

Stephen nodded, bowing to Nick's greater knowledge especially as it made sense to him but something niggled at him, something that might be important. He sighed and pushed the concern aside, aware that time was short. The vegetation around them was sparse and dry and they quickly gathered enough to keep a small fire burning through the night. Nick stopped and stared at the horizon as the sun began to dip below, turning a fiery orange as the sky gradually darkened into twilight. Shoving their backpacks inside the cave, Stephen joined him, sharing a spectacle that should have been romantic and awe inspiring but, instead, left him feeling jittery. That niggling was back, a fear of something important that had been forgotten.

Night fell quickly and Stephen had to admit that the pollution free sky was beautiful with stars shining like scattered diamonds across velvet black. He dropped down next to Nick at the mouth of the small cave and stared across the fire into the deep shadows beyond, a shiver tingling down his spine. The distant roar of a predator, probably a Titanophoneus, brought his head up sharply and even Nick's hand on his shoulder could not fully reassure him.

"We should take turns sleeping," Stephen stated softly.

"I don't think I could sleep right now so I'll take first watch."

Stephen nodded, casting one final look at Nick before retreating inside the small cave. The campsite had provided them with a single sleeping bag and groundsheet and Stephen quickly set it up and slithered inside, fully clothed. He stared up at the ceiling of the cave, watching the dancing shadows as the light from the small fire lit the interior in a soft glow. Slowly, his eyes grew heavier as the day took its toll upon him, eyes fluttering closed as he slipped towards sleep.

In the twilight world between awake and asleep, an image squirmed into his mind on multiple legs and Stephen's eyes snapped open. The shadows were still dancing across the walls and ceiling but other shadows moved too. Fumbling beside the sleeping bag, he reached for the flashlight and flipped the switch, illuminating the cave, breath catching in his throat as a dozen shadows fled before the light, shadows with multiple legs and sharp venomous claws on the first body segment. None were the size of the one that came through the anomaly into modern Britain but these were big enough to inflict a deadly bite.

"Nick!"

He cried out in fear as memories of being attacked in London assailed him, but Nick had already registered the flashlight switching on behind him and had ducked into the small cave holding a burning stick. More of the creatures darted away from the heat source as Stephen scrabbled for the cave mouth, beating at those creatures that had used the shadows cast by his body to hide in. Stephen flattened himself against the exterior wall of the cave, keeping well within the light of the fire and well back from the cave, breath coming in fear-filled gasps as he looked back into the darkened interior and heard the scuttle of feet upon stone. He looked at Nick and caught him staring in a mixture of fear and horror, the concern so deeply etched upon his face that Stephen forgot that this was not his Nick and fell into his arms, hugging the older man close and laying his head upon Nick's shoulder. He breathed in the scent of the man, letting Nick's closeness and the murmured words of reassurance flow over him. One arm tightened around Stephen while the other retained the burning stick, holding it aloft to keep the nocturnal carnivorous arthropods at a distance.

For a moment, Stephen was certain he felt the brush of lips upon his hair and he tightened his hold further, eyes squeezed tightly shut until the closer roar of a Titanophoneus had him snapping them open again.

"We'll be safer out here if we keep the fire burning high," Nick stated softly, dropping his arm from around Stephen's body. Taking the hint, Stephen pulled back but remained within touching distance as the nightmare images from his previous brush with carnivorous arthropods and arachnids slowly faded to a more manageable level.

"Maybe I should take watch as I don't think I'm going to able to sleep after that." His voice was shaking with fear.

Nick smiled wryly, patted his hand and pulled him in a little closer, encouraging him to lay his head down upon Nick's lap.

"I'll keep watch," he stated, and as Stephen gave into the pull of sleep once more, he was positive that he felt fingers carding through his hair and caressing his face in gentle reassurance.

***

Nick was kicking himself. He had been in such a rush to build a fire to protect them from larger predators like the Titanophoneus and its equally dangerous cousins that he had not wondered why no other creature had made a home of that shallow cave. He would not make the same mistake again.

He glanced down at the man sleeping with his head in Nick's lap and sighed heavily at yet another mistake. He had tried so hard not to get interested in Stephen, focusing his attention on Claudia instead because it was safer that way but who was he kidding? If Claudia had truly never existed then he might have acted upon his feelings for Stephen, he might have accepted that one-time offer to go down the pub for a beer just so he could find out if Stephen could be interested in him too. Instead, he had taken the safe route, channeling his affection towards Claudia and denying his true nature, just as he had all those years ago when he took Helen for his wife.

Had she known when she accepted his marriage proposal that he was running away from himself? From the way he felt about other men?

Then it occurred to him that Claudia might still exist in this new timeline but not be the same person. Perhaps her choice of career had taken her down a different road, one where they were no longer destined to meet? That could explain her absence far better than her and her whole ancestry simply ceasing to be, because the impact of that should have been far more reaching, affecting thousands of lives, changing the course of history with the so-called butterfly effect. Of course, he had not been in the new time line long enough to notice any radical differences but, for all he knew, the Germans might have won the last war, or America might have never gained independence and still be classified as a colony. For all he knew, the British Empire might rule the whole world, or might have never come about at all.

For all he knew, the current timeline might be the true one, the one restored by their actions in the past rather than destroyed by it. He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the headache forming behind them as his mind tried to wrap itself around the concept of time.

Stephen's hand was clawed into Nick's shirt, holding him tightly even in sleep as if he was terrified Nick would be gone when he awoke. In sleep, he looked even younger and more vulnerable but Nick knew there was a strong man inside there, one who had walked into a prehistoric arthropod nest in the London underground to save him and who had almost died because of it. At least, he assumed Stephen was that same man.

He threw another stick of what passed for vegetation onto the fire and wondered if even this small act was changing everything, depriving some creature of protection or food, condemning it and its lineage to early extinction and only then did it occur to him that the Permian to Triassic was a time of great change where they believed that over 90 percent of the creatures upon sea and 70 percent on the land were affected by a cataclysmic event that wiped them out to make room for the dinosaurs. On an individual basis, scientists studying the mass extinction estimated that over 99 percent died overall. Perhaps this was why he had noticed only subtle changes in Stephen, and from the others during that brief contact. Most of the creatures walking this world now, and their future generations, were already doomed never to make it into the Triassic, let alone into the present.

Hours passed and Nick tightened his grip on Stephen when a large shadow moved stealthily just beyond the circle of heat and light radiating from the fire. He had no way of telling if it was a carnivore or one of its prey but as it made no attempt to come closer, Nick stayed perfectly still and simply watched it carefully. It ambled off after a time and Nick breathed a sigh of relief.

When his eyes became too heavy to stand watch, Nick shook Stephen awake gently.

"Okay?"

Stephen nodded, staring into Nick's eyes for a moment as if waiting for something, and perhaps it was the trick of the light dancing over his face but the desire to kiss Stephen overwhelmed him. He leaned in, lips hovering over Stephen's, feeling the small puffs of warm breath tingling the sensitive flesh while giving Stephen every opportunity to pull away. Instead Stephen leaned in, eyelashes flickering, closing as he captured Nick's mouth, pressing with such reverence tinged with desperation. Hands slid beneath clothing to brush over cooled flesh, his own framing Stephen's face as he put all the long years of denial into the kiss. By the time he drew back, they were both trembling from suppressed need, aware that this was no time or place to put down their guard.

"You remember us now?"

Nick frowned and then it all made sense; the guarded, desperate looks, the pain of loss in Stephen's eyes. He shook his head but leaned in to kiss away the pain that leaped back into Stephen's eyes before pulling back with a wry smile.

"Doesn't mean we can't start a whole new line of memories."

Stephen grinned and pushed Nick down until he was comfortably settled down for sleep by Stephen's side. He stared into the dancing flames and thought about the coming day. Tomorrow they would head back towards the camp and see if they could find any trace of the future predator's offspring. By his reckoning, only two could have survived the original attack on the campsite for the rest had been eaten. He hoped he would find and destroy them, limiting the damage they had already caused in the time line. Afterwards, they would head towards where he and Helen had spotted the multiple anomalies and take a chance that one of them would lead them back to their own time.

His eyes closed with visions of a new future with Stephen filling his heart and mind. If they returned to find Claudia standing there waiting for him, he just hoped she would understand that he had never meant to hurt her, for whatever time line they found on their return, he would live it with Stephen.

THE END


End file.
